Arab Blues
After years abroad in Paris, Selma returns to Tunis with the dream of opening up her own psychotherapy practice. After 10 years of living in Paris, Selma (Golshifteh Farahani) has returned to Tunis. B…
Arab Blues
After years abroad in Paris, Selma returns to Tunis with the dream of opening up her own psychotherapy practice. After 10 years of living in Paris, Selma (Golshifteh Farahani) has returned to Tunis. Back home, her younger cousin can't figure out why she'd leave the French capital, her aunt is overbearing, and her uncle is only giving her a matter of weeks to crash in the apartment above their house. Selma, nonetheless, is steadfast in her resolve: she wants to open up a psychotherapy practice. So begins the first feature directed and written by Manele Labidi, an incisive comedy about coming home, breaking taboos, and building community. As Selma tries to settle in, she's faced with increasing complications that she couldn't have predicted. There isn't just the matter of finding interested psychotherapy patients in a locale that's not keen on the talking cure, but she also needs to navigate a confusing bureaucratic circus in order to get the right papers to run her practice. On top of all that, a strapping cop, Naim (Majd Mastoura), is keeping a close eye on her every move. —Toronto International Film Festival Selma Derwish (35) after practicing in Paris, opens her psychoanalysis practice in a Tunis. The beginnings are epic, between those who take Freud and his beard for a Muslim brother and those who confuse tariffed with "tariffs". But in the aftermath of the Revolution, demand is important in this schizophrenic country. As Selma begins to find her bearings, she discovers that she misses a license to practice essential to continue exercising. —brahamdali When you visit the beauty Parlour or Hammam, you also talk about your problems, allowing you to leave with a sense of emotional investment as well as some physical improvement. That's the kind of practical therapy this working-class suburb of Tunis appreciates. Hence their baffled resistance to enigmatic, Paris-raised outsider Selma when she tries to establish her psychoanalysis practice. With people still reeling from the country's turbulent 2011 revolution, some believe there's been more than enough recent self-help interventions. Writer-director Manele Labidi's debut feature is a wry, slyly effective satire of entrenched socio-political traditions. Iranian star Golshifteh Farahani is a subtly magnetic lead, ably backed by a colorful supporting cast of predominantly female allies and antagonists. —London Film Festival
Arab Blues
Comedy,Drama
Film Details
After years abroad in Paris, Selma returns to Tunis with the dream of opening up her own psychotherapy practice. After 10 years of living in Paris, Selma (Golshifteh Farahani) has returned to Tunis. Back home, her younger cousin can't figure out why she'd leave the French capital, her aunt is overbearing, and her uncle is only giving her a matter of weeks to crash in the apartment above their house.
Selma, nonetheless, is steadfast in her resolve: she wants to open up a psychotherapy practice. So begins the first feature directed and written by Manele Labidi, an incisive comedy about coming home, breaking taboos, and building community. As Selma tries to settle in, she's faced with increasing complications that she couldn't have predicted.
There isn't just the matter of finding interested psychotherapy patients in a locale that's not keen on the talking cure, but she also needs to navigate a confusing bureaucratic circus in order to get the right papers to run her practice. On top of all that, a strapping cop, Naim (Majd Mastoura), is keeping a close eye on her every move. —Toronto International Film Festival Selma Derwish (35) after practicing in Paris, opens her psychoanalysis practice in a Tunis.
The beginnings are epic, between those who take Freud and his beard for a Muslim brother and those who confuse tariffed with "tariffs". But in the aftermath of the Revolution, demand is important in this schizophrenic country. As Selma begins to find her bearings, she discovers that she misses a license to practice essential to continue exercising.
—brahamdali When you visit the beauty Parlour or Hammam, you also talk about your problems, allowing you to leave with a sense of emotional investment as well as some physical improvement. That's the kind of practical therapy this working-class suburb of Tunis appreciates. Hence their baffled resistance to enigmatic, Paris-raised outsider Selma when she tries to establish her psychoanalysis practice.
With people still reeling from the country's turbulent 2011 revolution, some believe there's been more than enough recent self-help interventions. Writer-director Manele Labidi's debut feature is a wry, slyly effective satire of entrenched socio-political traditions. Iranian star Golshifteh Farahani is a subtly magnetic lead, ably backed by a colorful supporting cast of predominantly female allies and antagonists.
—London Film Festival.